Comoving curvature perturbation in Jordan and Einstein frames

Abstract

In the context of $F(\phi)R$ models of gravity, the conformal invariance of the curvature perturbation on uniform-field slices has been already demonstrated in several publications. In this work we study the curvature perturbation $\mathcal{R}$ defined on hypersurfaces that comove with the effective fluid whose energy-momentum tensor is covariantly conserved. We derive the expressions of $\mathcal{R}$ at first order in perturbations in the Jordan and Einstein frames and relate the two. Generically $\mathcal{R}$ is not conformally invariant, but it is on sufficiently large scales during slow-roll inflation. Using our results we also rederive the expressions for inflation observables in the Jordan frame.